Check Out The Gorgeous New Trains In The UK--Too Bad The US Won't Get Them

One of the most frustrating and depressing aspects of U.S. politics right now is that so little federal money is being spent on domestic public infrastructure.

We're happy to spend a staggering ~$800 billion a year on our military--another worthy cause. But we are so appalled by the amount that we spend on our domestic infrastructure that we recently chopped public construction spending from $320 billion to $275 billion a year.

Given our high unemployment rate and extraordinarily low borrowing costs, now would be a perfect time for the government to commit a few trillion dollars over the next decade to bringing our decaying infrastructure into the 21st Century.

After all, high-quality infrastructure improves life for everyone in the country, not just rich people or middle-class people or the other voting blocks that our two big political parties are always sucking up to.

Infrastructure spending also doesn't train people to expect handouts or support wasteful consumer behavior--two complaints about social programs like food stamps and Medicare. Infrastructure spending creates jobs throughout the economy. And it reduces unemployment and social program spending (because more people go back to work).

But infrastructure spending is not just not being increased in the U.S.--it's getting cut.

If you spend a lot of time within our country's borders, you get used to how old and decrepit much of our infrastructure is.

But step outside the U.S. for a few days, and you remember.

I've spent the last few days in the UK, a country whose government is even more obsessed with cutting government spending than our government is. The UK is so insistent on cutting spending that it has thrown its economy into what looks like a triple-dip recession (needlessly so, in the opinion of many respected economists).

But the UK still finds money to spend on its public infrastructure.

Such as this dime-a-dozen commuter train line from London to Hampton Court in the picture below. I can't remember ever riding in a Metro-North train that looked like this. The London train was also perfectly on time, of course. With digital ticketing (the same digital ticket system that works with the London subway.) And it has all the other attributes that citizens in most developed countries expect their trains to have.

[UPDATE: I have now been informed that this is a private train line (subsidized by the government) running on public track. And some folks on Twitter are complaining that, since the line was privatized, prices have soared and rush-hour is jammed. So this particular international comparison with the U.S. may not be apt.]

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As a resident of the UK I can attest that the public transport infrastructure in the capital city is excellent. Unfortunately this high quality of service doesn't extend too far outside the M25 corridor. Sure there are cities that have good systems but I happen to live in the second largest city in the country and at best it can be described as inadequate for the 2 million or so people that live here. I cannot comment on the state of infrastructure in the US but agree with the authors point that good infrastructure is essential countries like ours which want / need to be at the heart of innovation.

Henry
Parts of the transport infrastructure in London are TOO new. I reckon that 60%+ of the London buses (at least where I live) are less than 3 years old. UK budget deficits are as bad as in the USA, and I see little sense blowing so much on the rolling stock. There are many worthwhile infrastructure projects like HS2 and Crossrail but money is being spent unwisely on other things that could wait.
One more thing -- compared to Germany, France and Switzerland, UK transport network seems way behind. Swiss rolling stock and tracks are so new, clean and advanced, they seem otherworldly, like museum pieces, even in mid-winter.